Countdown to Catfish

With only 19 days before the newly restored Hansen Dam Recreational Center is opened to the public, 375 pounds of catfish were dumped Monday into the fishing lake.

The artificial lake and another for swimming will open Aug. 28, completing the initial phase of a 17-year project designed to restore the recreation area to its 1950s prominence among Los Angeles parks.

Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Mission Hills) and staff members from the California Department of Fish and Game stocked the nine-acre lake with the fish trucked in from a hatchery in Indio.

Berman said he had wanted to restore the once-popular recreation area ever since he saw a picture of the place hanging at the Lake View Terrace Recreation Center more than a decade ago. He was surprised by how beautiful the old place was.

“I saw on the wall a photograph of the Hansen Dam area in its heyday,” Berman said. He added that his wife, Janis, who grew up in East Los Angeles, fondly remembered family excursions to Hansen Dam.

The dam was built in 1940 by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in a massive flood control project designed to channel flash floods which periodically roared out of the foothills during rainstorms.

In 1949, the city opened the area to the public as Holiday Lake. Its 130 acres of water and two miles of shoreline drew fishing enthusiasts, swimmers and picnickers from throughout the city.

But beginning with heavy flooding in 1969 and rainfall and brush fires, tons of debris and sediment flowed into the lake, forcing its closure. By the early 1980s, the area had become a haven for drug dealing.

After unsuccessful attempts to dredge the lake, city officials decided to build two lakes in the northwest corner of the area, next to the intersection of Foothill Boulevard and Osborne Street.

The lakes will be opened to the public during daylong festivities Aug. 28. The fishing hole will be stocked each month with catfish during warm weather and twice a month with trout during the cooler months, said fish and game officials. Users will be required to have a state fishing license.

Sand is being shipped in next to the fishing lake to provide a beach for the 1 1/2-acre swimming lake.

Among those celebrating Monday was community activist Marie Harris, a Pacoima resident since 1959.

“The northeast Valley is the best-kept secret of the San Fernando Valley,” said Harris, who is preparing a souvenir booklet for the dedication ceremonies. “God has blessed us so much.”

Harris gestured to the nonurban landscape around her. Scarcely two dozen homes were visible from the lakes. The San Gabriel and Verdugo mountains rose against the sky while horseback riders sauntered out of Tujunga Wash and past the baseball diamonds.

The only sign of urban activity came from the traffic visible on the Foothill Freeway, a mile to the north. But the din was barely audible over the sound of water cascading down the 50-foot boulder-filled spillway into the new lake.